Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). Among the fricative and affricate postalveolars, which are sometimes called "hush consonants" because they include the sound of English Shhh!, there are three subtypes, depending on the shape of the tongue. The prototypical postalveolars, sometimes distinguished as palato-alveolars, such as , are the principal topic of this article. The other two, the alveolo-palatal and retroflex consonants, such as and , are more fully illustrated in their own articles. The palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal subtypes are commonly counted as "palatals" in phonology, since they rarely contrast with true palatal consonants. Postalveolar consonants in the IPA The palato-alveolar sibilants and postalveolar clicks identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: Types of postalveolar fricatives and affricates The difference between palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, retroflex, and several other articulations is in the shape of the tongue rather than the location of the contact with the roof of the mouth, which is postalveolar for all of these. One variable in tongue shape is whether the contact occurs with the very tip of the tongue (an "apical" articulation with the surface just above the tip, called the blade of the tongue (a "laminal" articulation or with the underside of the tip (a "subapical" articulation). Laminal articulations may be made at palatal as well as postalveolar positions, and both may occur in some languages as allophones. A second variable is the amount of raising of the 'front' of the tongue behind the point of contact, which amounts to a degree of palatalization. From least to most palatalized, the attested possibilities are flat (unpalatalized) , bunched-up or domed (weakly palatalized) palato-alveolar , and (strongly palatalized) alveolo-palatal . These voiceless possibilities all have their voiced equivalents as well: . Note that upward curvature of the tongue tip to make apical or subapical contact renders palatalization more difficult, so domed consonants are not attested with subapical articulation, and fully palatalized ones only with laminal articulation. There is an additional type of postalveolar articulation found in Northwest Caucasian languages such as Ubykh: the tip of the tongue rests against the lower teeth so that there is no sublingual cavity. Ladefoged has called this a "closed laminal postalveolar" articulation; Catford describes the fricatives as "hissing-hushing" sounds, and transcribes them as (note: this is not IPA notation). This "closed" articulation appears to be an additional alternative to the subapical-apical-laminal spectrum, but can presumably be combined with various degrees of palatalisation, although this is not attested. The attested possibilities, with exemplar languages, are as follows. Note that the IPA diacritics are simplified; some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but only one is used in order to keep the results legible without the need for OpenType IPA fonts. Also, Ladefoged has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the under dot, to indicate apical postalveolar (normally included in the category of retroflex consonants), and that notation is used here. (Note that the notation is sometimes reversed; either may also be called 'retroflex' and written .) Other postalveolars Some languages that distinguish "dental" vs. "alveolar" stops actually articulate these closer to prealveolar and postalveolar respectively. Such is the case for Malayalam speakers who trill both of that language's rhotics: vs. . These are trills and therefore both apical; because of the unpalatalised postalveolar articulation, the latter is usually termed retroflex. However, in some non-standard forms of Malayalam, there is a laminal postalveolar nasal that contrasts with apical alveolar, palatal, and subapical retroflex nasals: . See also * Place of articulation * Alveolo-palatal consonant * Retroflex consonant * Hush consonant * List of phonetics topics References * Category:Consonants af:Palato-alveolaar ar:لثوي غاري br:Kensonenn drekkevig ca:Postalveolar cs:Postalveolární souhláska cy:Cytsain ôl-orfannol de:Postalveolar es:Consonante postalveolar eo:Postalveolaro fr:Consonne post-alvéolaire gv:Corockle lurg-chooyleeacklagh ko:후치경음 it:Consonante postalveolare he:עיצורים בתר-מכתשיים lv:Postalveolārs līdzskanis li:Palato-alveolaar lmo:Cunsunanta postalveulara hu:Posztalveoláris hang ms:Konsonan belakang gusi nl:Alveo-palataal ja:後部歯茎音 no:Postalveolar konsonant pl:Spółgłoska zadziąsłowa pt:Consoante palatoalveolar ro:Consoană postalveolară sv:Postalveolar konsonant